Report: Businesses Are Planning to Prioritize Email Marketing in 2018

Email marketing was the number one tool used by businesses to improve their brand in 2017, and it’s also the practice most of them are planning to prioritize in 2018, a recent report shows. The survey was conducted by email marketing company Campaigner and included responses from 506 marketers in the U.S.

Social media is definitely growing as a marketing tool, but the preferred channel to communicate and increase sales, in 2017, was email marketing. In 2018, most brands intend to focus even more on landing their messages in their customers’ inboxes. Want to read more about that? Click here!

What marketing practices are brands going to prioritize next year?

Email marketing: 78.66%

Social media marketing: 61.66%

Content marketing: 39.13%

Search engine optimization: 30.63%

Visual content: 29.05%

Localized content: 13.04%

Hyper-personalization: 11.07%

These responses clearly show that email marketing is going to be the star of 2018, as the most efficient tool to connect with customers, increase brand awareness and, eventually, revenue. The survey also reveals that this year’s most used practice was email marketing, with an astounding 93.08%, followed by content marketing, social media marketing,search marketing (pay per click), online advertising and SEO. As far as content goes, newsletters are the number one choice of marketers.

What do marketers mostly include in their emails?

Neweletters: 81.03%

Tips: 37.55%

Infographics: 28.06%

Less popular are videos, blog posts, and slideshares.

What else can we learn from The Digital Marketing Industry Report released by Campaigner? Let’s take a closer look at the results!

The greatest email marketing challenges in 2017:

Increasing open rates: 59.09%

Creating compelling content: 41.11%

Earning new subscribers: 31.23%

Maintaining click-through rates: 29.84%

Retaining current subscribers: 18.97%

Social integration: 10.47%

Adapting to changing opt-in regulations: 9.29%

As you can see, most marketers felt like increasing open rates was their biggest challenge this year. The average person working in an office receives around 120 emails a day. Competing with other senders for the recipient’s attention has really tested marketers’ abilities. Secondly, 41.11% of all marketers said that creating compelling content has been a real challenge in the last 12 months, as content really makes the difference between poor and great results.

What are businesses’ top marketing goals for 2018?

Attracting new customers: 67.98%

Customer retention: 48.02%

Increased brand awareness: 43.28%

Other interesting facts:

♦ 48.42% of marketers say the social media platform they are most going to invest in, next year, is Facebook.

♦ None of the brands that participated in this survey said they were going to invest in advertising on Tumblr.

♦ 17.79 % of them said they will not spend any money in social media ads.

♦ Emojis have seen considerable growth in 2017, with 56.72% of marketers using them in their emails.

♦ 51.19% said they are not worried about email marketing being replaced by other emerging technologies.

♦ Social media marketing has been the most successful in reaching millennials in 2017 (51.38%). Email marketing proved to be the second most effective tool, with 29.84%.

What are your marketing plans for 2018? Whatever you’re going to focus on, don’t forget the essential role email verification plays in the success of your campaigns. Having a clean email list can help you make the most of the time and money you spend on marketing!